


Curiosity

by FaerieMayden



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abandonment, Adorable, And a friend did too, Android, But it's not violent, Death, Fluffy, Friendship, Gen, Nuclear Warfare, Original Characters - Freeform, Rose - Freeform, SECB-0329 - Freeform, Started as an assignment for class, but I liked it, everyone dies, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieMayden/pseuds/FaerieMayden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Your name is SECB-0329, and you are an android.<br/>SECB-0329 stands for self-educating chat bot, but whether the string of numbers afterwards is a model number, creation count, or date of assembly is beyond you. You are no longer technically a chat bot, with a physical form, though you still maintain the wit of one.</em><br/>When your "home" is consumed in a ball of fire, you're finally given the opportunity to satiate your curiosity about the outside world.<br/>You learn from a little eight-year-old girl named Rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone enjoys this!  
> My friend certainly did, haha. They kept on going on and on, with things like "this was really good!" Or, "I'm so gay for that robot!" Or even, "I'm going to do all in my power to create a fandom for this story! I'll draw fanart and everything."  
> Constructive criticism is strongly encouraged!

Your name is SECB-0329, and you are an android. You prefer to go by CB, however, though the Humans tell you seeking and desiring a sense of self-identity is of unusual behavior. You don’t know why, though—they all identified as a separate people, each individual with their own unique designation.

SECB-0329 stands for self-educating chat bot, but whether the string of numbers afterwards is a model number, creation count, or date of assembly is beyond you. You are no longer technically a chat bot, with a physical form, though you still maintain the wit of one.

Currently, you are wired into the communications Hub of the factory, transferring data and keeping the facility’s machinery running properly. This is your function, just as SECB-0329 is your designation. You’d never doubted this. Because if you did, you would be disassembled for faulty compliance.

You are curious of the Humans. But when you attempt to interact, you do not feel as if you are collecting accurate data. It is insufficient, and the lack thereof dissatisfies you.

You are given synthetic skin, at one point, as the lab rat of a new project: rapid regeneration of synthetic skin cells, hopefully to be used in emergency surgeries for things such as burns. You can still see the dark blue circuits that line your body from underneath, in some lights.

You wonder to yourself, privately, what fire feels like.

One day, an alarm goes off, and you do not know what it means. But it comes from the Outside, and it sets the Humans off like a disturbed hornets’ nest (an analogy you only know of thanks to the endless resources of the “internet”). They scramble around, and suddenly there is an explosion that eats half of the compound in a split second. Fire licks greedily at the affected area as the facility dissolves into chaos so uncharacteristic of the usually orderly routine.

Warped metal walls look like teeth, through it the outside world, and you suddenly feel desperately claustrophobic. It is so, so hot and you can feel your fans overheating, choking on smoke and humming in desperation to keep you cool.

You detach yourself from the Hub’s main control panel, setting a brisk pace for the newly-made exit. The Humans seem to be getting the same idea, though some seem to be more apprehensive than others. The alarm continues to blare and it is so, so loud. Too loud. Your legs are not used to running, mechanisms somewhat jammed, but you manage.

You leap over a railing, then dart around a table. Fire bursts forth in your face, nearly making contact with your synthetic skin. You pinch your eyes shut, then dart through the flames, hissing as it eats the rubbery material away, fortunately somewhat resistant thanks to it’s composition as it quickly regenerates, like spilt water.

You think to yourself: _‘If I keep my eyes hidden, I may be mistaken for a Human.’_ The typical Human whites were black, the irises a deep blue like your circuits, but without a pupil. A smile curled your lips. Free to satiate your endless curiosity at last.

But when you walk outside, the landscape is desolate. Smoking, barren, and void of any nearby Human life. Walking to the corner of the large, partially submerged facility, you can see on one side nothingness. On the other, you see what you’d expect to see from the images you pulled from the “internet”.

Fried trees, healthy pines. Crumbling buildings, homes in perfect condition, Humans filtering out of the latter. You can hear their panicked screams from here. You were certain...or had been certain...that this was not supposed to be what it is like. But you’d never been outside before, felt the breeze run it’s intangible fingertips through your light brown synthetic hair, or to cool your drives. Never have you seen the sun, so intense you had to let your pupils shrink...

Despite the awful panic, you do not think you can go back to be evermore trapped in a building, faced with the constant reminder that _you’re not real._

By the time you have ceased taking in your surroundings, you notice the Humans have gone. As you start in the opposite direction they fled, the village gives you an odd, unfamiliar sense of foreboding. The facility was obviously on the outskirts, and the large buildings that neighbor it inform you that this is a particularly wealthy part of the Human settlement.

A door on one of the streets is left ajar, and you push it open the rest of the way with seldom a squeak. You hear breathing, soft and fast, coming from behind the sofa to your right. You raise a brow, shoving the couch aside with one powerful, swift kick.

Behind the couch is a little girl. Upon closer analysis, you determine the Human is hyperventilating. She looks up at you and your regrettably disinterested expression with tears pooling at the corner of her clouded eyes. You hesitate, then notice the girl is not looking at you, but more accurately right through you. You kneel and wave a hand in her face, gaining no reaction. You commence delving into your databases, scanning your compiled files with a speed greater than a supercomputer. Simultaneously, you shift to comfort the helpless Human and evaluate your surroundings.

You quickly reach a conclusion: the girl is blind.

Playing the audio track of a Human female murmuring comforting words to a child, and also playing a soft song you think Humans would find “relaxing”, you scoop the little girl into your arms. You’re on the porch when you wonder what your course of action will be. The Human cannot be older than eight, though you think she is still small for that age. You also think that you should attempt looking for her family, but then your drives’ fans pick up speed as a hot, foreign emotion washes over you like an angry wave on a shore during a storm.

They abandoned her. They abandoned this poor, defenseless child.

You identify the emotion to be anger. You are angry. The aggression bubbling within you feels almost pleasant, with how utterly _Human_ it is—but the boiling sensation tapers down suddenly, like a bubble popping, when the child winces at your tight grip. It’s then that you give pause.

Why should you care? What makes this child your responsibility? It’s become clear to you that Humanity is selfish and self-preserving; the very unattractive antonym of an honorable, admirable altruism. The explosion, whatever it had come from, hadn’t even given them an excuse by striking their settlement. 

Your curiosity is what keeps the child in your arms. 

Several months pass, and never do you abandon the child. She introduces herself eventually as Rose, though she insists on being addressed outside of the binary, and you’re quick to learn that due to her blindness, her hearing rivals yours.  
You’re pretty bad at remembering to use her pronouns. 

Rose had informed you that there was a World War going on, and the explosion had been a nuclear blast in a faraway city. You take in the information with a morbid zeal, and it works out well, as Rose seems to be happy to teach you new things. But the serenity wasn’t meant to last. It was the middle of a war, after all. 

The government doesn’t seem happy with your escape, and had been hunting you around lately. You just know Rose has driven you defective, for you ignore the calls demanding you return to headquarters immediately for decommission. You can’t just abandon Rose—and for a moment you wonder, why?—and besides, you still have so much to learn. 

One day Rose is dozing while you both lay propped up against a broken vending machine. A crowbar and pile of glass lay carefully swept to the side. Rose had been oddly careful picking shards from your skin, as if worried you’d feel pain. It could penetrate the synthetic skin, but would never touch the mechanisms under your metal shell. You had tried to tell her this, but the eight-year-old would only shake her head with a determined grunt whenever you tried. You decide to be grateful, instead.  
You somehow know that you are on borrowed time. The only reason the government isn’t actively hunting you is because of the war. But you never share your concerns with Rose. She had enough problems of her own. 

It’s almost Wintertime now, and Rose is shivering. You ask her why, and she’d reply that she is cold. The temperatures have been hotter with the radiation, but a t-shirt and jeans, she explained, were not the right clothes for cold weather. You don’t really feel the temperature fluctuations, though you do suppose the fans working less hard is a sort of subtle indication. 

Soon after, Rose grows ill, and you do not have the materials to make it less painful for her. It gets worse and worse as time stretches on. You assume she has caught the Human respiratory disease Tuberculosis, but despite your lack of true emotion, you quite literally lack the heart to inform her of her fate. She has become of...sentimental value to you, and you didn’t like seeing her sad. 

She grows only sicker still. 

One day, your stillness leaves the both of you vulnerable in multiple ways. Lack of movement makes Rose an easy target to the elements, and you to the government. But carrying Rose ailed her nearly as much as allowing her to walk. Rose does not wake later on that same day, and as you continue to stare at her now motionless form, you decide you are grateful for the lack of an organic body. 

You do not leave her from where she lay, despite your detachment from the situation. The scientists and government authorities do not take long to find you after that, once the discord has settled. You are reminded of your mortality, as your last documented memory is the muted hiss of an EMP device, the life fading to static and then nothing. 


End file.
